Botlab
FormationMarch 30, 2015 (2015-03-30)
Founded atHelsinki, Boston
Type501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
Purposeresearch and development related to ad fraud, user rights violations and other malicious practices in the advertising technology supply-chain.
Key people
Mikko Kotila, Amit Phansalkar
Websitehttp://www.botlab.io

Botlab (previously known as botlab.io) is a non-profit, volunteer based research foundation focused on research, publication and open-source development related with ad fraud, malvertising, privacy violations and other malicious practices in the advertising supported internet.[1] Botlab's global volunteer network works towards the goal of more transparent and more secure internet.

Media Coverage

A paper authored by Botlab, Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge[2] has been widely covered in the media[3][4][5][6] including a Financial Times cover story.[7] The paper is a collaboration with World Federation of Advertisers, whose members collectively represent 90% of the world's US$700 advertising budgets. WFA published the paper as an official guideline document to its members[8] for understanding and countering ad fraud.[9]

Botlab researchers were featured in two additional Financial Times cover stories during 2015 and 2016[10] one of which was Big Read [11], a major editorial piece of the week in Financial Times print. In addition Botlab's work and commentary have been widely featured in ad industry press,[12][13][14] events and social media .

Research

During 2016 Botlab's Ad Fraud Council was the author of World Federation of Advertisers guidance on ad fraud to its members titled Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge. Botlab also contributed as co-author to Independent auditing of online display advertising campaigns, a research paper accepted to Hotnets academic conference in 2016[15] and was a major contributor in Entropy Method for Detecting Invalid Traffic at Scale,[16] a paper introducing an open source method for large scale detection of invalid traffic.

Open Source Contributions

During 2015 and 2016 Botlab made available three open source solutions focused on detection and prevention of advertising fraud:

  • Denylist - a blacklist consisting of over 130 million data center IP addresses[17]
  • Sitemind - a site research tool for researchers and media planners to counter ad fraud [18]
  • Nameles - an entropy based detection and filtering solution to counter ad fraud [19]

Collaboration with Trade associations

In addition to being listed as one of the partners[20] by World Federation of Advertisers, since Botlab's founding in early 2015 its Principal Mikko Kotila acted as the co-chair for I-COM's Data Science Board,[21] I-COM is a global trade body backed by 100 associations in 40 countries,[22] today, exploring the creation of business value from Marketing Data & Measurement.

References

  1. ↑ "leading source of insights and understanding about advertising fraud". botlab.io | ad fraud research. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  2. ↑ "Compendium of ad fraud knowledge for media investors" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-09.
  3. ↑ "REPORT: Ad fraud is 'second only to the drugs trade' as a source of income for organized crime". Business Insider. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  4. ↑ "WFA warns that ad fraud will hit $50bn a year by 2025". The Drum. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  5. ↑ Kulp, Patrick (9 June 2016). "Ad fraud could become the second biggest organized crime enterprise behind the drug trade". Mashable. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  6. ↑ "WFA: Without Changes, Ad Fraud May Reach $150 Billion Annually". www.mediapost.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  7. ↑ "'Endemic' fraud threatens digital advertising budgets". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  8. ↑ "WFA issues first advice for combatting ad fraud | Global News | WFA". www.wfanet.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-10. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  9. ↑ "Press releases | Press | WFA". www.wfanet.org. Archived from the original on 2017-01-08. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  10. ↑ Cookson, Robert (22 September 2015). "Google charges for YouTube ads even when viewed by robots". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  11. ↑ Cookson, Robert (18 July 2016). "Digital advertising: Brands versus bots". Financial Times. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  12. ↑ "Mikko Kotila Discuss the Ad Fraud Ecosystem & What the Industry Can Do to Address the Problem | ExchangeWire.com". www.exchangewire.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  13. ↑ Nyman, Hilde. "- Annonsesvindelen vil eksplodere". kampanje.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  14. ↑ "'Major intervention from advertisers is needed to deal with fraud'". The Drum. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  15. ↑ "HotNets 2016: Home Page". conferences.sigcomm.org. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  16. ↑ "Entropy Method for Detecting Invalid Traffic at Scale" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-01-10.
  17. ↑ "botlabio/deny-hosting-IP". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  18. ↑ "SiteMindOpen/SiteMind". GitHub. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  19. ↑ "NAMELES – open source ad fraud detection". nameles.org. Retrieved 2017-01-07.
  20. ↑ "Project Reconnect | Towards better marketing". www.project-reconnect.com. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  21. ↑ "Data Science Board". I-COM. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
  22. ↑ "Who we are". I-COM. Retrieved 2017-01-09.
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